


show him his face

by CaityCat



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Can be seen as platonic, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Comfort/Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 07:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1770673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaityCat/pseuds/CaityCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's sighted in New York, not far from Times Square. Only he isn't in Soldier mode, he's always in a stained old gray sweatshirt and jeans that have seen too many washes and are frayed at the edges. He passes through the busiest streets with his head down and hands in his pockets or tucked up his sleeves, and he never talks to anyone. The only reason Coulson's agents even notice him is because they catch a look at his hand when he bends down and picks up some lady's purse to hand it back to her.</p>
<p>{spoilers for Winter Soldier, obviously}</p>
            </blockquote>





	show him his face

The Winter Soldier is sighted in New York, not far from Times Square. Only he isn't in Soldier mode, he's always in a stained old gray sweatshirt and jeans that have seen too many washes and are frayed at the edges. He passes through the busiest streets with his head down and hands in his pockets or tucked up his sleeves, and he never talks to anyone. The only reason Coulson's agents even notice him is because they catch a look at his hand when he bends down and picks up some lady's purse to hand it back to her.

Natasha lets it slip to Steve, though she was explicitly told not to. She knows a little about what James Barnes is feeling, and she knows that he needs an anchor. They still haven't found Barton, and she wants some good to come from the new SHIELD's access to all the cameras in America and most in other countries.

Steve doesn't suit up. He tugs on a shirt and shoes, grabs the shield, and is out the door before Sam even registers what was said. The two follow, but they don't stick as close as they would. Steve has the look on his face, and they know it. They know he needs this.

He tracks James Barnes down to the room, and they find out he's not going by his name but by Samuel Buchanan. His neighbors hardly know him, they've only seen him come and go, but apparently he's been there for about a week.

Steve is too impatient for the elevator, and takes the stairs at a run. At Bucky's floor he stops, and suddenly he needs Natasha's shoving hand to continue. His steps are slow and careful and when he reaches the door he hesitates again.

Natasha and Sam are at the end of the hall, between the elevator and the stairs. They aren't moving, and they've turned their backs. Steve is being granted privacy, and for that he is thankful. He raises his hand, and the door opens.

“Samuel Buchanan” stands on the other side, his hood pulled up over a baseball cap and hair that hasn't been cut since DC. Steve momentarily freezes, and the man on the other side of the door gets as tense as a cornered cat. His eyes flit all over, mapping exits, and he shoves the door shut, but Steve catches it on his arm.

“Bucky-” He tries, the word desperate and pleading even to his own ears, and the man visibly flinches away.

“I don't know you!” He shouts, and it sounds frustrated and strained rather than angry. He kicks the door and it bangs into Steve. He shoves it open again and Bucky is running across the tiny apartment.

“No! Please!” Steve shouts, ducking into the room as Bucky shoves a couch at him and backs away, already heading for the tall glass windows. He has a balcony, and Steve knows exactly what he'll do. “You remembered--”

Bucky smashes straight through the glass when Steve gets too close. He leaps off the edge of the balcony by the time Steve gets to the window and Steve shouts after him, but Bucky doesn't look back as he runs. His sleeve is ripped, and Steve can see the arm beneath shining like silver.

“Coulson!” He shouts, holding a hand to his ear. “Coulson, he's headed from the Square. Activate the plan. Now! Now!”

Coulson gives him the affirmative that everything is in place, and Steve jumps off the balcony behind his best friend and rolls when he hits the ground.

***

Some part of him wants to believe that the blonde man crashing through his apartment is his friend, is a man he'd give anything for, but he  _doesn't remember._ It feels like there's something there, but he can't reach it. Like Steve's face was in a dream he'd had once, a long time ago, and by now it was gone.

He shoves through crowds, ignoring the loud protests. That, at least, he remembers. New Yorkers were always loud. He knocks over a larger man but doesn't even stop to apologize. He just keeps going. He isn't sure where he'll end up, but he isn't ever sure of much anymore.

In fact, at that moment the only thing he  _was_ positive of was that he needs to know exactly what's happening in his surroundings so he doesn't get dropped on by Captain Blue Eyes again. He sees the little girl that sold him chocolate cookies waving a sign for a Girl Scout car wash on his left, and the old man who sells newspapers on his right. There are plenty of people that he watches carefully for any signs of attack, and plenty more he knocks into as he races down the street.

His eyes flick to check the giant screens and he stops short.

The megascreen is showing his face. He looks so happy, with crinkles by his eyes and his lips parted over his teeth. He stares, head falling to the side as he watches himself laugh. He doesn't look like that, not anymore, but he can't stop looking. The camera pans out just a little, away from his face. He's standing next to the man he knows is named Steve. They're both in uniform – but not a uniform he remembers wearing, not really. He has both arms in the video.

He turns, trying to flee the image, and sees himself plastered up on another of the screens, this time holding a gun. The image is more familiar, but when the shot's fired and done his image stands and whoops and slaps the hand of a man standing next to him, some burly man with a cigar. He doesn't know the man's name.

More image pop up, all over. Some are from him in the war, he can see. He knows the feeling he gets when he fires the trigger, the feeling when his flesh hand closes around a metal trigger and pulls. He knows the feeling of grit on his stomach from lying prone and sniping people off. He knows the feeling of boots tied tight and Kevlar slung heavy across his chest. He knows the feeling of punching and feeling a nose crack beneath his fist.

What he doesn't remember is throwing the arm of a small – no, tiny – man with Steve's face over one shoulder and bumping their sides together. He doesn't remember the warmth it took in his gut to smile that way. He doesn't remember Steve being tiny like that at all, because in his memories Steve is big and wearing a flag on his chest and carrying a round shield – not a triangle one.

The screens are screaming at him, he thinks. They're so...  _loud,_ and they don't even have volume. He grinds his teeth and throws the baseball cap to the ground. He staggers to the closest alley and falls against the wall, but he can still see some of the screens, showing this man who looks like him and has his face and cocks a gun the same way – 

–  _but it isn't him it isn't it isn't itisnotnotnotnotnot –_

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.” Someone says, right in front of him. He jerks away. No one should be able to surprise him, but he'd been so focused on his face laughing and flashing smiles and, and _dancing_ –

It's Steve Rogers, he realizes. Captain America. _His best friend._

“You--” He chokes out, unable to decide what he's trying to say.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You were in the 107th, and then you were one of my Howling Commandos. You were born in Shelbyville, Indiana but grew up in Brooklyn--”

“No, shut up!” He screams, because it hurts. His head hurts, and he thinks he knows these things but he doesn't, he _doesn't--_

“You met me when I was getting the shit beaten out of me. They threw me in a dumpster and you jumped in right after me--”

“No!”

“We were best friends...”

“Shut _up._ ”

“And you got drafted, or you signed up, I don't really know anymore, and...”

“I – fell. I fell from... from a ...” James rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and pulls at his hair, because he can see it, in flashes. He can see dirty alleyways and dimly lit bars where he danced. He used to dance.

“Train.” Steve says. His face doesn't change, but his eyes do.

“I … you _let_ me fall?” He looks up, suddenly murderous.

“No!” Steve's face does change now. He drops to a squat, weight on the balls of his feet. “No! I grieved for you, Bucky. You fell and I thought you were dead. I never let you fall. I... I was going to jump after you.”

James Buchanan Barnes grits his teeth because the image is clearer. He remembers. But then he remembers falling, and he clenches his eyes shut and curls into his knees. “I...” He gasps, “I can't--”

“You don't have to. You don't have to remember it all now.” Steve promises. He reaches out and grips his knee, and Bucky doesn't pull away. He just stares at the hand through his fingers, his breathing ragged and his eyes wet and shining.

“What if I don't want to remember?” He asks, quietly, and Steve goes rigid.

His hand falls away, and Bucky watches it as his fingers brush the dirty alley ground. He looks as Steve's eyes seem to shatter, as his face seems to crumple like a can in James' metal hand.

“I'll let you forget.” Steve says, quietly.

James Buchanan Barnes' eyes trail back to the screens that are still broadcasting his face and his smile. His past. He catches the one with the little tiny man that looks like Steve, and stares at it. He looks back at the man in front of him again, and says nothing.

“Do you want to forget?” Steve asks him.

Bucky stares at him some more and says nothing, and he watches Steve's heart break in the blue of his eyes. Steve nods and rises to his feet. “Okay. I...” He shakes his head and turns, and heads for the end of the alley. “Have a nice life, Bucky.” He says. Bucky still says nothing. Steve nods again, closes his eyes and steps out into the crowd.

A week later, the Avengers are fighting a horde of robots. Hydra built them, lost control of them, and then left them to ransack the country. Things are going okay, slightly worse that the battle with the Chitauri what feels like years ago.

Steve smashes his shield through the chest plate of one and hits it again until it falls, and then spins to fight another. Even with Hawkeye, Coulson, and a couple of other SHIELD agents picking off as many as they can from the rooftops, Steve hasn't had a break to breath since he'd dropped into the fight on a plane.

He knows the blow is coming before he feels it, and it hurts as bad as he'd suspected it would when a metal fist plows into his back and sends him toppling. The air is thrown from his lungs and he sprawls, groaning. He rolls out of the way of a stomping foot, but he can't breathe. He still can't breathe.

The fist is coming but there's no breath in his lungs. And then the fist is not coming, and in fact the other three robots that had been attacking him are down, too.

“Thanks, Barton.” He grunts when he has enough breath. “That one almost had me.”

There is an almost tangible concern in the pause that follows on his comm. “That wasn't me.”

He frowns. The shot had been precise, too precise for the enormous gun that Coulson carries, that uses his name. “Coulson?” He says anyways. It definitely wasn't a SHIELD agent. They were too far away.

“No, Captain. Wasn't any of the agents, either. Ward made sure.” He says, confirming Steve's thought process.

“Then who-?”

“Checking it out now.” Barton replies. Cap hears him move.

He gets up and tugs his shield free from the nearest robot. There's a bullet hole straight through its head and right where the important circuitry is. A clean shot. He follows the trajectory and sees Clint hopping onto the same roof he's tracked it to.

“Holy fucking--” Clint comes across, and then he's cut off. There's the noise of a scuffle, and Steve starts to run for the building.

He just reaches the doors when a voice cuts across the channel, clear and sharp as day. He can hear the smile in the voice talking. “I know you had him on the ropes, but I thought--”

“Bucky!” He cries, and his knees almost give out from shock.

“The one and only.” He laughs, and Steve is actually crying. There are tears in his eyes.

“Thought you wanted to forget.”

“Me too, but I made a dumbass promise back in the forties. Actually, mighta been earlier than that.” Steve turns and throws the shield at an approaching robot, severing its head, and Bucky whistles.

“What promise is that?” He asks, grinning despite the bruises and war raging around him.

“End of the line, punk.” Steve hears his best friend clear his throat, and then he says, “For real this time.”

Steve can deal with that.

 


End file.
